Acclaimed live sound work coming to Historic St George’s Church
AUDIO: A concert happening in Sydney this weekend aims to transport you to a series of churches in rural Newfoundland through the sounds of their church organs.
On Sunday, September 27, Canadian composer Michael Cloud Duguay brings Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go, an immersive live performance, to St. George’s Church, Unama’ki-Cape Breton Island’s oldest standing church.
Created from music, interviews and field recordings gathered during a 1,500-kilometre journey across coastal Newfoundland, the sound work explores rural communities, memory, faith, loss, climate change and human connection. For the live performance, musicians Andrew MacKelvie, Markus Lake and Dave Grenon join Duguay to perform using digital instruments created from the historic church organs recorded along the journey, alongside woodwinds, saxophone, narration, projected photography and live sound processing.
Michael Cloud Duguay joined CBC Radio’s Information Morning Cape Breton host, Steve Sutherland to share some sounds from Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go, to talk about his creative process, and to set the stage for Sunday’s performance in Sydney.
“Many of these organs have been there for hundreds of years, in these primarily wooden churches in fairly harsh climates in Northern Newfoundland, and there are no organ technicians remaining there any longer, so their personalities, their sounds and their tones are changing over time,” Duguay said, adding, “I became fascinated with composing for instruments that I knew would be out of tune but I didn’t know in what way they would be out of tune until I met them.”
Listen to the full interview here.
Find out more about Sunday’s matinee performance, which will also feature Grieving Machines, a radio-based installation and immersive sound experience by Bleachlake, here.
Presented by Eltuek Arts Centre with Wild Lots. Photo credit: Noah Bender
